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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28463160">"What'd I Do...?"</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MollokoPlus/pseuds/MollokoPlus'>MollokoPlus</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>True Dare Kiss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:08:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,333</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28463160</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MollokoPlus/pseuds/MollokoPlus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth and Stan have a long-overdue conversation.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kaz &amp; Beth Sweeney, Kaz Sweeney/Beth Sweeney</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>"What'd I Do...?"</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Beth found the other side of the bed empty when she woke, coughing as usual, and no longer warm; Kaz had apparently been up for a while. Would the morning cough ever stop, allowing her to breathe normally? She just managed to keep herself from reaching for the fags no longer on her bedside table and pushed herself off the bed. A quick yank and flip had the bed linens mostly straightened. She looked into the loo to see Kaz spitting toothpaste into the sink and rinsing. He’d missed a bit of shaving soap, near his sideburn, but before she could say anything to him about it, he gave his face an extra wiping first with a damp flannel and then with a towel, then pulled his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. The feeling of disappointment, of not being able to wipe that bit of shaving soap off his face, was new, and Beth was more than a little unsure what to think of it.</p><p>“I’ll get the tea,” was all he said by way of morning greeting as he donned a jumper and headed down to the kitchen. She took a half step aside to avoid the arm skimming along the wall as his other reached out for the bannister.</p><p>She must have been moving awfully slowly this morning, because the pot of tea was ready by the time she made her way downstairs. A scrambled egg, a couple of rashers, and a slice of well-buttered toast with a bit of marmalade, washed down with sweetened milky tea, had her as ready to face the day as she’d ever be. How had he known it was just the perfect amount for this morning?</p><p>“Kaz, don’t forget: I’m off to Dad’s after work today. Don’t know what he wants, so I don’t know how long I’ll be.” Beth touched his elbow before leaning in to kiss his cheek. “Cut back on the sugar.”</p><p>“I don’t sugar my tea; I’m naturally sweet. And anyway, that’s my cheek. I haven’t dumped tea on me since I was in hospital.”</p><p>She gave an amused snort at the memory, and decided not to mention the times it happened in rehab, too. “Yeah. Get the boys to take you out for pizza.”</p><p>He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer, his other hand cupping her face, to kiss her himself. “They take me out, and I pay for the pizza?”</p><p>She slid her hand along the sleeve of his jumper, then gave his hand an affectionate squeeze when she reached it. “Mmhm. You’re the dad; that’s how it works. See you later.” She walked to the door, then stopped and looked back at him, grateful that he couldn’t see her expression. There was still a lot of sorting to be done, and she wasn’t quite certain how to go about it. At least they were kissing again, even if the kisses were still fairly chaste ones.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, Dad, I’m here.”</p><p>“You want a drink?” Stan led the way into the kitchen.</p><p>“You’re all right; tea’s fine.” Beth shrugged at Stan’s raised eyebrows as he filled and turned on the electric kettle. “I promised Kaz. What d’you want to talk about?”</p><p>“Kaz. We didn’t have much time to talk at the party, so let’s talk now, have a bit of a catch-up. How did you meet? When did you start seeing each other? When did you get married?”</p><p>And the one question he didn’t ask, but she knew would be coming, in one variation or another, at some point: how did you end up marrying a blind man? Beth sighed heavily, stalling her response, giving herself time to figure out how to start, where to start, by gathering the things she needed to prepare a pot of tea once the kettle boiled. “We met at a match, seats near each other. Then we met up again when we happened to be at the same pub to watch an away match. We started going to matches together, just home at first, then away matches, too. I liked him well enough; he was a good rucking mate, always looking out for me, even though he wasn’t really into it, into the rucking. He just wanted to make sure I didn’t get hurt. And we had fun at the matches. But I wasn’t looking for anything long term. I was actually all set to give him the nudge, but then…” She shifted uncomfortably. “It didn’t feel right. If he hadn’t been trying to look out for me, he wouldn't have been there, and if he hadn’t been there, nothing would have happened, he never would’ve been hurt.”</p><p>“His eyes…” Stan began, pouring himself another whisky. The kettle came to a boil, and he handed it over to her. “They look normal, not like blind people’s eyes usually look.”</p><p>She took a moment to pour the water into the teapot. “His eyes are normal, Dad. There’s nowt wrong with them. I know it seems weird, him blind and all. But they work just like before, moving, reacting to light, everything. It’s the damage from the caved-in skull that makes him blind. That part of his brain just doesn’t work. His skull … there’s a plate in it, a patch. You’ve seen the scar; you can’t miss it. It was so smashed … so caved in, they had to pick bits of skull and hair out of his brain while they mopped up the hemorrhages. They had to replace part of his skull, where they sawed his skull open around the smashed-in part to clean up the mess and try to fix the damage. And then his own blood basically poisoned that part of his brain, killed off the cells. Your own blood killing your own brain cells. How strange is that? Mightn’t have been so bad if he’d been treated right away, but he was left for dead, layin’ there for hours.”</p><p>Beth refilled the kettle, then retrieved milk from the fridge before continuing.</p><p>“He was more than a week in IC after the emergency surgery. It was awful, tubes and wires and shit strung out everywhere, oxygen mask on his face. It was cold, and stinking of cleaning stuff and disinfectant and who-knows-what the whole time. They had to wait for the swelling to go down before they could do surgery again, to put in the patch where they had to cut out that section of skull. Then straight back into IC.” She didn’t know, couldn’t begin to guess, how many hours she’d spent at his bedside, telling him to wake up, begging him to live, to get well, to be well. “And even when they stepped him down out of IC, he was out of it, just not…” She paused, shrugging, trying to decide how to explain. “Just not all there. But then, he was still in pain, still drugged up — antibiotics for infection, painkillers. He still gets headaches sometimes. They said that might happen, even years later. There was a huge knot on his forehead from when he fell and hit his head on the pavement. They were treating him for concussion, too, besides the contusions, just to be on the safe side, because of all the things that can happen to the brain when it gets bounced around inside the skull.” </p><p>She filled her cup, then added a bit of sugar and some milk, stirring distractedly.</p><p>“They brought in a physiotherapist and a bunch of other people — specialists — to try to evaluate the damage; they said at first he wouldn’t survive, and then when he did, they were sure there’d be brain damage. But it was only his sight never came back. I was there when the neuro gave him the news, said there was no hope he’d ever see again. Kaz took it better than I did. I went to the pub almost straight away and tried to drown away the news with glass after glass of ale. I was well bladdered when I finally left the pub that night. Didn’t even go see him for a couple of days after that; I couldn’t bear it. He just took it and said, okay, where do we go from here?, like it didn’t even matter any more that he couldn’t see, that he’d never drive a car, or work in a factory, or ride his bicycle, or play football with his mates on Saturday mornings.”</p><p>“Or join the army or run away to sea?” Stan suggested in an attempt to lighten the mood. </p><p>“Yeah, Dad, those, too,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I kept waiting for him to lose it, to get depressed or angry, scream or cry or throw things, but if he ever did, he never let me see it.” </p><p>Sipping at her tea while she thought about it a bit, she was fairly certain the closest she had ever seen him come to crying was when he finally unloaded on her, the morning of Stan's birthday, when he talked about their wedding, what she looked like, when their sons were born, what they looked like then, what they looked like now, things he’d never seen, would never see, could only try to imagine.</p><p>“They brought in a shrink as well, but those sessions were all private, and as far as I know, he hasn’t seen her, or any other, for over ten years. He had physio while he was still in hospital; there was some muscle weakness and coordination problems and balance and stuff because of the head injury and being in a bed for so long. They helped him with learning to walk without being able to see where he was going, too, how to not slide his feet ahead of him to find things he might trip over or with his arms out in front of him like a cartoon sleepwalker, how to hold his arms up to protect his face and neck, how to skim his hand and arm along a wall, counting the steps from one place to another.”</p><p>Stan looked puzzled at that, so she explained, “Counting the steps from the bed to the loo, loo to wardrobe, stuff like that, so he can find his way round. It was weeks before they could get him into proper rehab, RNIB rehab, even with the report from the neurosurgeon. It was residential; he lived there, had to learn — re-learn — how to do nearly everything, even how to dress himself without getting everything crooked. How to piss without getting it all over the floor and the bog itself. Wiping his arse and getting clean. Shaving. How to use the stick — orientation and mobility, they call it. How to get round the city, crossing streets and using transit, walking in a straight line and not wandering all over the pavement. How to fold paper money according to the denominations. Things he’d been doing for himself for more than eighteen years were different. How to feed himself without wearing it, fix his own meals.” She gave a harsh laugh at that. “He cooks better than I do, better foods, more nutritious, less fried stuff. And cooking is my job.”</p><p>She paused to pour more tea into her cup, and to add more sugar and milk. “He had to learn Braille. He reads Braille books, borrows Talking Books from RNIB, gets audiobooks from different places. He still turns his head to face whoever’s talking, but it’s always off just that little bit, like he’s lookin’ over your shoulder or at your chest or something, but of course he’s not looking at anything.” Except the night of the party, when she had finally confessed to him, and he had barely tipped his head toward her, hadn’t turned to face her at all. “And there’s this involuntary moving thing his eyes do, like twitching or something.”</p><p>“I noticed that,” Stan commented. “It is a bit creepy. And several times during the party he looked like he was staring straight into the fire. I had to remind myself he can’t actually see the fire.”</p><p>“I had to learn how to be a guide for him. We learned how to sort his clothes, how to hang his shirts and trousers in matching groups so he wouldn’t leave the house in a plaid shirt and striped trousers or something equally horrible. Not that we’d buy anything like that anyway. It was how the kids learned to match their own clothes.”</p><p>“We were spending a lot of time together — I was in to see him nearly every day, and I’d bring stuff. He still calls ‘em ‘care packages.’ Meat ‘n’ potato pie, a couple of Boddies, a Double Decker. I’d bring Red Issue, too, and read it to him. He finally said we oughta get married, so we did. It was after he finished full-time rehab, and he moved in with me. Just a registry office thing; we didn’t even know the witnesses. Didn’t take me long to fall pregnant with JJ, and then Georgie not long after.</p><p>“He tried to help when they were babies, but there was only so much they taught him in rehab, him being single at the time, only so much he could do. It was hard for him to make sure he got them clean when he tried to change nappies, but he could give ‘em their baths. Oh, the three of ‘em, playin’ in the water!” She gave a fond laugh at the memory. “They came out of the bath dryer than ‘im. He used to get Braille books, kids’ books, when they were little, so he could read to ‘em. They always liked that. And they made a game of him feeding them. That could get pretty messy.”</p><p>“Chinese take-away,” Dennis interrupted suddenly, startling them both; she hadn’t even heard the door. “If you’re interested.” He and Alice unburdened themselves onto the counter and set about preparing their own plates. Once the two of them departed to another part of the house, Beth and Stan ladled up for themselves.</p><p>Beth set her plate on the table, collapsed into her chair, and watched numbly as Stan tore the paper wrapper from a pair of chopsticks. A flash of memory, and she suddenly recalled when she’d seen Kaz using chopsticks. It had been before a match, waiting for her outside Old Trafford, and he was eating straight from the take-away carton. Could he still do it? Could he still eat with chopsticks? The thought made her stomach churn. She was hungry; it’d been hours since her own lunch and must be getting past tea time, but now she wasn’t sure if she could eat, if she could choke it down without it all wanting to come right back up again.</p><p>She forced herself to eat anyway, taking ridiculously small bites as she continued speaking. “He’s always encouraged them to do things, but both of them gave up playing football when they realized he couldn’t see them play, when it really sank in for them what ‘blind’ means, even though he’s been blind their whole lives, never knew him when he could still see. I think it really disappointed him that he couldn’t teach them to play football or ride their bikes, but he’s never said.” Yet another example of things left unsaid over the years, she realized. More things held in … for how long?</p><p>“He has a job, does some kind of work for an environmental agency, so he has a little room at home for his den. The computer monitor’s always on--Georgie and JJ make sure of that — and a little desk lamp, too, but that’s mostly for the boys, for when they need to help him with something to do with his computer; Kaz sure doesn’t need it. But it’s still strange to look over there when it’s dark everywhere else, and there’s that little light from the monitor shining on him. They’ve always been close, the three of them. They even put the Braille stickers on his keyboard for him. He’s still slow at typing, mostly hunt-and-peck, never be a secretary, even though he learned proper typing at RNIB, part of his occupational training.”</p><p>“He still gets headaches sometimes, too, even after all this time … oh, Jesus, I already said that, didn’t I? They told us there’d probably be sleep problems, and they were right about that. They said it happens with people who are totally blind, who don’t perceive any light—No Light Perception, NLP, they call it. They get insomnia at night and fatigue during the day because they can’t see day or night; it messes up their — what’s the term they used? — circadian rhythm. There’s no more day and night; it’s all night for him. And apparently blind people have more nightmares. It can get rough sometimes. He doesn’t talk about the dreams, but I know he has them. He gets up some nights and goes downstairs when he can’t get back to sleep.” She shrugged. “But then, I’ve never asked him about the nightmares, either.”</p><p>“I imagine he’s on the dole, too,” Stan remarked. There was a note of cynicism in his tone that disappointed Beth but didn’t surprise her.</p><p>“I wouldn’t call it that, Dad, but yeah, he gets payments for being disabled. An’ it gets ‘im discounts for some stuff he needs, like when he needs a new stick.”</p><p>“There’s more,” Stan said as he refilled his whisky. “What haven’t you told me? I remember reading about it in the papers, hearing about it on the news programs. ‘Young football fan found beaten and left for dead after match at Anfield.’ I remember reading that there were no witnesses, that no one came forward to confess, and that the victim hadn’t been able to identify the attackers when the coppers were finally able to interview him.”</p><p>Beth inhaled, long and slow, and scrubbed both hands over her face, exhaling slowly as she sagged against the chair back. She knew. Knew he’d told the investigators he hadn’t seen his attackers, that the attack had come from behind, and that was true. She also knew he’d told them he wouldn’t be able to identify them by voice, and she knew now that he would have been able to identify at least one of his attackers by voice, knew now that he had protected her from the consequences of her own folly, had managed to cover for her even in his state at the time, disoriented, barely out of IC after the second surgery, when his mental and emotional grip on things had been tenuous at best. She had looked everywhere but at the coppers as they questioned him, pretending to focus on the Red Issue in her hands, fully aware that yes, she knew there were two blood-covered bricks, a puddle of puke, and the beanie which had gone flying from his head with the first blow beside him when he was found, cold, unconscious, barely breathing. Did he know there had been two of them breaking his skull open with their filthy bricks?</p><p>“It wasn’t the Scouse, Dad. It was me. I’m the one who mushed his bonce. And then left him for dead.” She hadn’t seen Kendricks, her partner in crime, since that night.</p><p>Stan nodded in silence, in a way which reminded Beth unnervingly of Kaz’s own knowing nods.</p><p>“I drank because of what I did. Because seeing him every day was a reminder of what I did to him. Because being drunk made it easier to cope with that knowledge. Because maybe if the snouts and the kegs and the shitscran killed me it’d make the guilt go away.” But of course it didn’t help; she had her own nightmares, and all too often they were of that night in the tunnel after that away match.</p><p>“Oh, god, Dad, I’ve been treating him like shite for years, like he’d lost all his intelligence along with his sight, even though I knew that wasn’t true. I’ve been hard on him, insulting him, calling him names, smacking him, pushing at him. In private, in public, in front of the kids, it didn’t matter.” </p><p>She had an assortment of insults: dick brain, optically challenged, Wonder Boy, Stevie Shagging Wonder, stick insect, Obi-Wan, Braille boy, knob head, soft cock, soft twat, bane, bane of my life, Mr Chilled, liability, pig ignorant, dickhead. She’d even cobbled them together into things like “pig-ignorant optically challenged dick brain.”</p><p>“Like I was trying to push him away, make him leave me. He’s never left. Oh, he’ll pack up a rucksack and leave it in the hall by the door once in a while, but he’s never actually left. I’ve always been afraid he would, even though I was thinking about leaving him.” </p><p>It occurred to Beth suddenly, and it surprised her that she’d never considered it before, that Kaz was actually better equipped to leave her than she was to leave him. Sure, she could survive on fry-ups and take-away and shitscran like tinned stews, but Kaz had been trained for independent living before he’d been permitted to leave his rehab program, was well able to care for himself, and would probably do a better job of living on his own than she would. And she hated to admit it, even in the privacy of her own mind, but she knew their sons would be better off living with their dad than with her.</p><p>“Took him nineteen years to finally lose his patience with me. ‘Course, he had Phil’s help with that. Plus setting us up with those tickets to the match at Anfield, forcing me to remember that night, face up to what I’d done, with Phil right there, pushin’ for answers herself. But he finally did lose it, and let me have it. I deserved every word of it.”</p><p>Phil had seen it coming, and had escaped upstairs, while the man Beth had derided as “Mr Chilled” finally did lose it, and ripped into her verbally.</p><p>“And he knew it was me, knew it from day one. He could smell the scent I was wearing, heard things — my voice and … other stuff, too. He only told me he’d known it that long; it was Phil who told me how he knew, ‘cause he’d told her, and then she told me later. I’ve never told the boys, and I’m pretty sure he hasn’t either. As far as they know, he was mugged after a match. Which is the truth, as far as it goes.” </p><p>She’d resented him all those years, resented that he’d been there with her, that he’d managed to get separated from their group of friends and acquaintances, resented that he’d even entered the tunnel, trying to find her so they could go home. She’d resented, and projected that resentment onto him, blamed him for every mishap, misstep, and misfortune which had plagued her for the last nineteen years.</p><p>But she knew that was wrong, had known all along, had tried to destroy herself over it, over the guilt of what she’d done to him in a drunken fury over a match loss. And, god help her, he was willing to forgive her. For so very little in return.</p><p>“Do you love him?” Stan asked</p><p>“Y’know, Dad, I think I really do. I know he loves me, and he says he always will. To be honest — with you, with myself — I’m not sure I did at first. I married him out of guilt, because of what I’d done. But now? Yeah.” Phil had told her that before her return to London and Dan, in that same hours-long conversation they’d had, just the two of them. Over tea, of all things! It was a wonder they hadn’t been driven from the tea shop, they were there so long. </p><p>“Go to your husband, Beth,” Stan insisted. “Go to him, take him into your bed, into your arms, and make love to him. I haven’t spent much time with him yet, but it’s been enough to know how much he loves you. Go to him. When was the last time you went on a date?”</p><p>Phil had asked her much the same thing: “Do you know how much he loves you, Beth?” She had gone on to tell her what Kaz had said, that had he been given a choice before it happened between keeping his sight and having to live without Beth or being blind in order to stay with her, he’d have chosen the disability. “Gimme the white stick any time,” he’d confessed to Phil.</p><p>And truthfully, she couldn’t recall when, or even if, they’d ever gone on a date. Watching him eat a meat-and-potato pie while she read a United fan paper to him hardly qualified.</p><p>She was beginning to realize that he always had, that even before what she’d always thought of as That Night he’d loved her. And how had she repaid that love? By leaving her husband at home with their children while she shagged their brother-in-law. How had Kaz known? How long had he known? How had he known it was Nash? Kaz couldn’t see, but was she the one who was truly blind?</p><p>The therapists had told them that just because he could no longer see, his hearing didn’t automatically, magically, improve; that was a common myth. Listening, more than hearing, was a learned skill, and would improve with time and practice.</p><p>Just how well had Kaz honed his listening skills over the years? “It’s the eyesight’s gone Pluto, Beth, not the ears,” he’d reminded her. “Or the nous.”</p><p>Jesus, how much did he know? How much had he heard over the years, when she didn’t think he was paying any attention, when she wasn’t crediting him with any sense, any intelligence? He really did know more than he was letting on, as she’d admitted to Phil.</p><p>At least she’d never had to worry about him reading her text messages! Small consolation though that was.</p><p>Their conversation had become a catharsis for her, allowing her to finish her dinner without wanting to throw it back up again. They tidied the kitchen together, putting away the leftovers — where were Alice and Dennis anyway? — and washing their dishes. Another cup of tea washed down the fortune cookie, and then Beth bade her father good night. She was glad now they’d had this time together.</p><p>Although neither of them had been a virgin when they married, they hadn’t been lovers before marriage. What an adventure those first days and nights had been! She’d never shagged a blind man, and Kaz hadn’t shagged anyone since before the night he lost his sight. Was it possible to have been virgins again? In a way, she supposed, it was. Not virgins in the sense they’d never had sex at all, but definitely virgins in the sense of new experiences. Did that count as virginity? Maybe a form of it?</p><p>But now she found herself feeling oddly shy — they hadn’t made love in ages. They had never flirted with each other, not really, and now she wondered how to go about it. What kind of wanker doesn’t know how to flirt with her own husband? And how much worse that there were things she and Nash had done that she and Kaz had never tried, more adventurous? Things she now wanted to do with her husband, things he would know she had learned elsewhere. How could she introduce those things into their relationship?</p><p>She stopped at a newsagent on the way home to buy a card. She’d never been one for mushy cards, soppy, sentimental twaddle, but this time she searched the selection until she found one which satisfied her, chock full of soppy, sloppy, silly, sentimental twaddle. She’d have to find Kaz’s Braille label maker, so she could transcribe the card’s greeting, and then add her own message. Then it would be a matter of deciding whether to leave it for him at his computer, where he would find it in the morning, or set it on his bedside table, where he usually left his phone when he went to bed. It was as she was walking out of the shop that she finally recognized the song currently providing the soundtrack to her errand. You are the sunshine of my life; that’s why I’ll always be around. She had kicked at him on his stool in the pub, called him “Stevie Wonder” and “dozy twat,” insisted he sing, and this was what he’d chosen instead of the one she and the other United fans had been singing moments before. Oh, god, Kaz. Only the memory of him flipping her off at the same time kept her from bursting into tears. And bursting into tears had never been Beth’s style. What was she coming to?</p><p>The downstairs was dark when she finally arrived home. Of course, that didn’t mean that Kaz wasn’t sitting around in the kitchen or the lounge; he never bothered turning lights on. But there was no one on the ground floor, not even occasional-insomniac Kaz. She slipped into his den, and scrounged through the desk drawers until she located the label maker. The transcription of the card’s message took longer than she expected — she seldom used the label maker, so it was a slow process. And maybe she should have chosen a card with a shorter message….</p><p>Her project finally completed, she stuffed the card into its envelope and left it on his desk under his headphones, then made her way upstairs.</p><p>Lights showed under the doors to the boys’ rooms, and, of course, there was no light on in the room she and Kaz shared. He was on his side, facing away from the door, and as far as she could tell, was sleeping. She wouldn’t put it past him to be faking it, although she was reasonably certain he really was asleep. It took all of her willpower not to run a finger along the scar on the back of his head, the hairless curve seeming to gleam in the low light from the hallway against the dark brown of his hair, to run her hand through the hair kept short for ease of care. Walking softly, knowing he could wake easily, she rounded the bed to turn on the lamp on her bedside table, grabbed her nightgown, and went into the loo to change and ready herself for bed. Who was this person, who had never before cared whether she woke him or not? Before turning out the light, she gazed at him for a long moment. He had one hand fisted loosely and tucked under his chin; while the other arm was extended slightly toward the middle of the bed, this hand also with fingers curled. She slipped onto the bed as gently as she could, hooked her fingers around his, squeezed tenderly, and pressed her lips to them. She snuggled in closer, keeping his hand close to her face.</p><p>“I do love you, Kaz,” she whispered, and once again squeezed his fingers gently, then closed her eyes.</p><p>She didn’t see his sleepy smile.</p><p> </p><p>The next day, while she was at work and the boys were at school, he called a friend who owned an up-and-coming cab company and went out to the card shop near Old Trafford. With help from Derek and the clerk, he chose a card. A tiny dog-ear in the bottom corner of the back of the card by the clerk assured him of the correct orientation. Using his signature guide, he wrote “Yes” inside the card and “Beth” on the envelope, and left it on her bedside table.</p><p>They became “fuck buddies” and more that night. He never bothered to ask where she learned some of those things she did to him, or the other things she taught him to do to her.</p>
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